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Despite best efforts to find the time to update Madness at Miskatonic, I have only just gotten around to this task. With this latest version there are a few continuity fixes and some more editorial/clarity changes. Thanks must go to Peter Cruise for his thorough eye and very helpful edits. The campaign notes are greatly improved because of his input. Thanks too to G. Roby picking up on some key timeline and linguistic issues. Both these fine individuals volunteered their time via the Yog-Sothoth forums and are fine examples of the collaborative community that resides there.

Well this one got away from me. I had hoped putting together my notes and handouts from a mini-campaign I recently ran would be a straightforward exercise. Turns out I’d seriously underestimated the amount of work involved. Never-the-less, it’s finally complete!

In this four-part Call of Cthulhu campaign the investigators enrol in an esoteric subject taught by a radical academic at Miskatonic University. Meanwhile strange dealings align for the worse as fellow classmates commit suicide, a madman escapes Arkham Sanatorium and a curious exhibit of Egyptian artifacts goes on display in the University library. These dire events culminate in the Investigator’s growing realisation of man’s fragile role in the universe as they do battle with unseen powers that seek to seize control of their minds. If they cannot prevail they will be slain, driven mad or worse!

Madness at Miskatonic is 49 pages long with over 24 handouts/play aids. It comes in two formats:

*(After typesetting to US Letter I didn’t have the strength to go back in and completely re-typeset in A4. This A4 Cover version will print out fine, the separately scaled cover is provided to avoid any strange cropping that would arise on A4 paper with the US Letter format).

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Of course I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. Putting together this mini-campaign for public consumption is taking a little longer than expected (no surprises there, I guess). What has been an important part of the process for me is balancing my desire to produce a user-friendly document with avoiding lengthy tracts of text that ramble on and on about the minutiae of each session. I want something that is part tool kit part “colouring book” providing just enough scope for Keepers to fill in the details based around their own idiosyncrasies. But enough of the griping.

For the time being here are some sample PDF pages from the final Madness at Miskatonic document:

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I’ve commenced putting together a PDF for Madness at Miskatonic, a short Call of Cthulhu campaign where the investigators play freshmen students at Miskatonic University. Rather than put it out in dribs and drabs (but very tempting in terms of keeping the blogging regular), I’ve decided to put it up in one shot when it’s ready to go. I’m probably a bit over optimistic in that I’ll have it done in within the next fortnight. Starting next week I’ll do a but of promotion on this blog to generate a bit of interest before going live.

(Oh, and the site passed 10,000 visitors earlier this week. Probably small by most RPG blog standards, but an occasion worth noting none-the-less).

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I guess it’s the nature of blogs that they can slip away from you. Various events have conspired against this blog recently, pushing it to the bottom of my ‘to do’ list. A poor excuse, of course. Cracking open my analytics today I cast an eye over which pages have been getting all the hits. Which has lead me to reassess what I’m trying to achieve with this site. But I’ll get to that a little later. Let’s look at those stats. Continue reading →

Over at Yog-Sothoth fellow forum member Mysterioso suggested that a Gaslight and Modern version of my cut down character sheet would be useful. So here they are. They are much the same as the 1920s version (the notes on the “Cthulhu lite” system can be found here), with the following exceptions:

Gaslight: The skill “Drive” has been replaced with “Ride”. For simplicity this skill can also be used to drive carriages. Let’s not split hairs over such things.

Modern: The specialisation “Computers” should be added to the Investigation skill.

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I’m a notorious tinkerer when it comes to RPG systems. I like to tailor the system to suit my style of GMing. While Call of Cthulhu is robust and fairly elegant system, there have always been a few elements that have bugged me about the overly extensive skill list available to player characters. This is my cut down version of the Call of Cthulhu character sheet. It plays exactly the same as the standard Call of Cthulhu system but with a few modifications.

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Developing roleplaying campaigns…

A highly sporadic, infrequently updated blog on roleplaying theory generally and Call of Cthulhu and Vampire the Requiem more specifically. Home too to the 4-session Cthulhu scenario 'Madness at Miskatonic'.